The Electric Guitar Review

The first of the 2009 Limited Run Series guitars from Gibson USA
The neck on the Holy Explorer retains the traditional characteristics of the original Explorer neck – 24¾-inch scale, 22 frets, rosewood fingerboard and figured acrylic dot inlays. The Holy Explorer also sports a single volume control perfectly positioned for swells, and two of humbucker pickups.

The Holy Explorer features include six in-line mini Grover tuners, which deliver smooth tuning action and accuracy, Gibson’s traditional stop bar tailpiece and Tune-o-matic bridge, and a customized Limited Run Series certificate of authenticity and Gibson USA hardshell case with a white silkscreened logo. The new Holy Explorer is limited to just 350 guitars.

There’s just a single volume control, positioned for easy pinky-finger volume swells, and a three-way pickup selector — nothing superfluous to get in the way of you and your tone.

The Holy Explorer also retains its ancestor’s distinctive “drooping” headstock with six-in-line tuners, which in this case are Grover Mini tuners. The guitar is also fitted with a 1-11/16″-wide Corian nut and Gibson’s traditional stop bar tailpiece and Tune-o-matic bridge, which keeps everything firmly anchored and ready to wail.

Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009) known as Les Paul — was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which “made the sound of rock and roll possible”. He is credited with many recording innovations, including overdubbing (also known as sound on sound), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects, and multitrack recording.

His innovative talents extended into his playing style, including licks, trills, chording sequences, fretting techniques and timing, which set him apart from his contemporaries and inspired many of the guitarists of the present day. He recorded with his wife Mary Ford in the 1950s and they sold millions of records.

Among his many honors, Paul is one of a handful of artists with a permanent, stand-alone exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an “architect” and a “key inductee” along with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed.

Guitar Builder

Paul’s innovative guitar, “The Log”, built after-hours in the Epiphone guitar factory in 1940, was one of the first solid-body electric guitars. Adolph Rickenbacker had marketed a solid-body guitar in the 1930s and Leo Fender also independently created his own in 1946. Although Paul approached the Gibson Guitar Corporation with his idea of a solid body electric guitar, they showed no interest until Fender began marketing its Esquire and Telecaster models. Gibson designed a guitar incorporating Paul’s suggestions in the early 1950s and presented it to him to try. He was impressed enough to sign a endorsement contract for what became the Gibson “Les Paul” model, originally only in a “gold-top” version (official name: “Les Paul Standard”), and agreed never to be seen playing in public, or be photographed, with anything other than a Gibson guitar.

The arrangement persisted until 1961, when declining sales prompted Gibson to change the design without Paul’s knowledge, creating a much thinner, lighter, and more-aggressive-looking instrument with two cutaway “horns” instead of one. Paul said he first saw the “new” Gibson Les Paul in a music-store window, and disliked it. Although his contract required him to pose with the guitar, he said it was not “his” instrument and asked Gibson to remove his name from the headstock. Others claimed that Paul ended his endorsement contract with Gibson during his divorce to avoid having his wife get his endorsement money. Gibson renamed the guitar “Gibson SG”, which stands for “Solid Guitar”, and it also became one of the company’s best sellers.

The original Gibson Les Paul-guitar design regained popularity when Eric Clapton began playing the instrument a few years later, although he also played an SG and an ES-335. Paul resumed his relationship with Gibson and endorsed the original Gibson Les Paul guitar from that point onwards. His personal Gibson Les Pauls were much modified by him—Paul always used his own self-wound pickups and customized methods of switching between pickups on his guitars[citation needed]. To this day, various models of Gibson Les Paul guitars are used all over the world by both novice and professional guitarists. A less-expensive version of the Gibson Les Paul guitar is also manufactured for Gibson’s lower-priced Epiphone brand.